Americans Spend Over $39 Billion A Year Drunk Shopping

Why do you think Amazon is so successful?

It’s no secret that people have made plenty a bad decision while under the influence. There’s the famous drunk dial of college days gone by, a forgotten item of clothing at a bar (who needs two shoes anyway), a regrettable make out sesh, you know the drill. But it turns out drunk shopping is quickly becoming a fan favorite — and an expensive one at that.

A study by finder.com found that Americans spent over $39 billion (that’s billion with a B) in the past year shopping while tipsy, up over $9 billion from the previous year. Odder still is that that number has increased so sharply but the number of people admitting to drunk shopping has decreased significantly (46 percent down to 26 percent). I guess that means the 53 million drunk shoppers are just honing their craft, and also buying some pretty expensive shit.

So what are people actually buying? Surprising approximately zero people, food topped the list. Fifty-seven percent of Americans reported buying some form of snack food after they drank. Shoes and clothing items came in at 43 percent and cigarettes also topped the list at 30 percent.

Slightly less popular may be this cowboy Jesus a friend bought under the influence on Spring Break this week. No word on if this little gem will find its home on her bedroom dresser or get left in the airport bathroom where it probably should live out the rest of its days.

I stayed with my best friends at a hotel last year and after many (many) bottles of wine, we apparently decided to book a trip to Colorado later in the year. I’d completely forgotten about it (which means I completely forgot to mention it to my husband) and he came running out of his office one day telling me my credit card had been hacked. You know, because there was a plane ticket to Colorado on it.

But with all those billions, some people are really knocking themselves out on the spending front. The survey found a whopping nearly 11 percent of people bought an entire car while drunk and almost 15 percent of those surveyed booked a vacation (my people). Then there’s the close to 5 percent of people that responded “other,” which can only mean they purchased this Jeff Goldblum shower curtain but were too embarrassed to admit it.

Surprisingly, men admitted to drunk shopping more than women, 56 percent over 44 percent. Perhaps I just hang with a professional crowd of intoxicated females who proudly send each other pictures of our winnings (see above cowboy Jesus), but I’d have thought women topped the list. I guarantee you 100 percent of women compliment each other in bathrooms drunk, and that’s really the more important statistic.

Additionally, the study found millennials spent more than double the amount Gen Xers or Baby Boomers did on drunk purchases during this past year. I guess since they can’t afford a house they might as well treat themselves to a new pair of kicks after four glasses of cabernet.

As long as you can afford it, you may as well get yourself something nice every once in a while. Sure, it may be a “want” versus a “need” if you’re three cocktails deep, but you only live once, right? Treat ‘yoself.